In response to an increase in size, sophistication, and complication of data centers in recent years, a wide variety of electronic apparatuses (for example, servers, routers, storages or the like) are located therein. Furthermore, a majority of such electronic apparatuses located in the data center have a wide range of variation in power consumption. Due to the reasons discussed above, it has been very difficult to accurately estimate a power supply-distribution capacity necessary for the data center.
Moreover, if an excessive use of electric power (overload) that exceeds the power supply-distribution capacity in the data center occurs, this results in a voltage drop or an interruption of electric power, and as a result, a serious accident, such as the loss of data stored in the electronic apparatuses, may be caused. Thus, high reliability, for example, the supply of electric power to the data center without interruption, is necessary for the power supply and distribution.
However, as discussed above, it is very difficult to accurately estimate the power supply-distribution capacity necessary for the data center under current circumstances. In consequence, there is a problem that it is inevitable to make an investment in equipment to achieve a power supply-distribution capacity greater than what is actually necessary for the data center.
There is a conventional technique which makes supply of electric power within a range of an operating environment and/or of a power supply capacity possible by adequately controlling consumption of electric power over an entire circuit, so that the conventional technique achieves a reduction in power consumption of electronic devices (for example, a large scale integration, that is to say, an LSI).
However, the conventional technique disclosed above has a problem that it is very difficult to apply the conventional technique to such a facility, for example, a data center which contains electronic apparatuses owned by customers. This is because, in typical cases, the customers control the electronic apparatuses in the data center, and it is very difficult for the data center managers to control the operations of individual electronic apparatuses.
For the reason discussed above, to achieve highly reliable power supply/distribution, such as, the supply of electric power without interruption, it is still inevitable to make an unnecessarily large investment in the equipment in the data center. This may result in a problem of increasing costs for the data center.
According to one aspect of the present application, use of electric power that exceeds a maximum power supply-distribution capacity in a facility, such as a data center, a server room or the like, is effectively suppressed by accurately estimating a power supply-distribution capacity necessary for the facility, so that the problems in the conventional technique may be solved. According to an aspect of the present application, an unnecessarily large investment made in equipment for supplying and distributing the electric power in the facility may be reduced, if not prevented.